


A Way Out Through The Lies

by elfin (crazylittleelf)



Series: Wolfsister [2]
Category: Fringe, Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Every Marine a Wolfbrother, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazylittleelf/pseuds/elfin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia and her brother meet Peter and his sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Way Out Through The Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Which in Your Case You Have Not Got](https://archiveofourown.org/works/223466) by [Dira Sudis (dsudis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis). 



> This is, essentially, the _Fringe_ pilot if Olivia was a wolfsister. Possibly doesn't make any sense to anyone other than me.
> 
> But really, every fandom needs psychic wolves.

Olivia watched Peter Bishop turning away from her in the lobby of a hotel in Baghdad and felt her last shred of hope fraying into nothing. He'd been her best chance of getting to Dr. Bishop and he was walking away and she had no way of stopping him.

_Ask him about his sister,_ Silas suggested.

Olivia didn't look down at her brother in shock. She kept her eyes trained on Bishop's back as he fled across the lobby of the hotel.

"I know why you're here. I have your file." She wasn't a good liar. She knew that. Her voice was steady, though, and filled with conviction. She only had one shot at this.

He turned slowly, wariness in his eyes and posture. "What file?"

"The one the FBI would say doesn't exist. And it has everything -- where you've been, what you're running from, what you need, and why you're here. So, either you come with me, or I let certain people know your whereabouts. Yours and your sister's."

His eyes went flat at that, a dull hatred that was quickly covered by a smile. The wolf that slunk out from behind the edge desk was pale gray and large, but her body language made her seem small, insubstantial. She sat behind him instead of putting herself between her brother an a threat. Silas leaned into the side of Olivia's leg.

"When do we leave?"

*****

Silas kept his chin on her knee after takeoff, the only concession he would make to wanting to crawl onto her lap and bury his head against her chest until they were back on the ground. She rested her hand on the crown of his head, tracing the brindled pattern of his sand-colored fur with her fingers.

Peter pulled his attention away from the window and glanced at the wolf. "Arabian?"

Olivia nodded. "One of the desert lines that the Marine Corps picked up after the Gulf War."

He looked amused and curious. "How did you end up with a Marine Corps wolf?"

"I was an investigator for them before the FBI." She tilted her head at the gray wolf beside Peter. "Your sister?"

He shook his head and laughed. There was no humor in the sound. "You'll have to ask Walter. We didn't exactly go through official channels." He dropped his hand down towards her, but stopped just short of touching. "Her name is Smoke."

"This is Silas."

The smile that pulled at his lips might have been the first unguarded expression she'd seen on his face.

"Hello, Silas."

Silas flicked his ears towards the man sitting across from them but didn't lift his head, didn't offer his scent name to Bishop's sister. It was an unusual reaction, and Olivia quested wordlessly along the pack-sense that bound them. She got back only _worry worry worry_ with no clear target or focus. She rubbed his ears and flooded him with comfort.

Bishop was asking about his father and Olivia turned her attention to answering his questions.

******

Smoke started whining before the SUV rolled to a stop in the parking lot of St. Claire's, the smell of illness and fear thick on the air. She trailed farther and farther behind Peter and she was nearly out of sight when Peter balked as well. Silas wanted to whine, too, but pressed himself against Olivia's leg instead, keeping his body between her and the cell doors on their right. He curved himself in front of her legs when she stood in the doorway of Dr. Bishop's cell. He sat under the table while she talked to Dr. Bishop in the empty cafeteria. He stood between her and Peter when she went to fetch him for Dr. Bishop.

_I don't like them._ Silas growled softly.

She watched Peter's back as he walked down the hall to see his father, and trailed slowly behind him. _We need them. They'll help John. They'll help Griz._ She carefully didn't give Silas the image that came to her mind of John and his brother lying injured in the hospital, carefully avoided the gaping hole in their pack-sense where John and Griz should be. She hesitated outside the door to the cafeteria and pushed reassurance to her brother that was meant as much for herself.

*****

Silas didn't like the way the hospital smelled, and Olivia couldn't really blame him. He waited with Smoke outside the sealed-off area where John and Grizzly were. Olivia felt a small measure of relief that they were together. With his thick fur hiding the damage to his skin, it almost looked like Griz was just sleeping. She reached along their pack-bonds and felt only emptiness. She looked up at the Bishops.

"If I get your lab back, you can help them?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Walter Bishop sounded like a calm, reasonable man just then, like he hadn't flung a tray of medical tools across the room in a fit of anger.

Peter glared and clenched his mouth shut.

*****

Silas circled the lab, sniffing everything, pushing particularly horrifying scents to Olivia. She swallowed down nausea for nearly twenty minutes before she said, "Oh my god, stop that, it's disgusting."

Peter looked at her over the equipment he was setting up for his father. "What? What am I doing?"

She waved her hand. "Not you."

Astrid smirked at her from across the lab.

The door banged open and the scent of _cow_ preceded the actual cow into the lab. Silas whirled around and his mouth dropped open. Olivia gave him an image of a cartoon wolf with a lolling tongue and heart shaped eyes. He snapped his mouth shut.

_That's not food,_ she reminded him.

_Oh, but it could be._

The cow ignored them both.

*****

Peter did not touch his sister, at least not where Olivia or Silas could see them. Smoke also made no attempt to communicate to Silas over the pack-sense that all wolves seemed to share. Smoke was silent, and without her presence in Olivia's pack-sense, nearly invisible as well. She was, disturbingly, like a very large insubstantial dog who shadowed Peter's every move.

_Broken,_ Silas declared, his ears flattened at sideways angles to his head. Olivia chewed on her lip and watched them; Peter arguing with Walter, Smoke sitting under a nearby table, barely visible. She wanted to shake all three of them and demand they do something to help John and Griz instead of arguing endlessly.

_How?_ Olivia looked down at her brother.

His ears twitched towards Walter and his lips lifted in a silent snarl. _How do you think?_

She frowned. _I guessed that much. I meant in what way is she broken?_

Silas was quiet long enough that Olivia though he wasn't going to answer, then he flooded her with the feeling of _loss loss empty cold_ ; the shivering fear that she would die and he'd be left without her. Olivia made a sound like she'd been punched and slid off the chair to wrap her arms around her brother and press her face against his shoulder, hiding her tears in his fur.

Footsteps sounded behind her, slapping against the concrete floor of the lab, someone calling her name, but she couldn't look up, couldn't let go. Silas whined. _Like that. That's how she's broken._

"Olivia?"

She shook Peter's hands off of her back and wiped her eyes with one hand. "Don't do that again." Silas licked her face. She looked up at Peter and bit back the questions she wanted to ask about his sister.

*****

_No._

Olivia looked from Silas to Peter to Walter, and thought _a wolf, a conman and a mad scientist walk into a lab…_ Silas didn't laugh.

Silas closed his mouth over her wrist, teeth digging into her skin. _No._ He didn't understand what Walter was suggesting -- Olivia wasn't entirely sure she understood it herself -- but he was absolutely certain that she shouldn't do it. The look on Peter's face said he felt the same way. Somewhere under the table Smoke whined.

"Okay, Olivia, excuse me for a second. You're obviously under severe duress and you haven't slept since Iraq and the man you care about might die, but I'm telling you, that man will kill you!"

_Listen to him._

"What will happen to Silas?"

"He'll sleep. He won't even know it's happening."

Silas growled. _You don't go where I can't follow._

When she spoke, it was as much over their pack-bond as it was out loud. "John would do it for us."

*****

Silas bit her nose when she was out of the tank. Olivia shivered against him, wet and nauseaous. She gave Silas the image of the man she'd seen in John's dream and the certainty that they would find him.

*****

They found him and now they chased him.

Silas leapt off the building behind her, landing on the fire escape far more easily than she did. He didn't bounce off the side of the building first. Olivia winced at the pain in her shoulder, jumped off the side of the metal stairs, fell onto the top of the dumpster, then rolled to the ground. Silas' claws scrabbled on the metal as he followed. He found solid footing on the ground and darted forward, and Olivia grinned at his delight in the chase, his confidence that now that he had Steig's scent there was nowhere the man could run that Silas couldn't track him.

They came around the corner to Peter and Smoke tackling Steig to the ground. Smoke snapped her teeth inches away from his face. Silas joined her, teeth barred and growling, and Olivia leaned over the prone man. "We've got some questions for you."

*****

Olivia stormed away from the interrogation room and called Broyles. There had to be leverage they could use against Steig but she wasn't going to find it on her own. She paced the hallway, Silas at her heels, arguing her point. She wanted to snarl in frustration.

Silas' head whipped towards the interrogation room, ears pricked forward. _Trouble._

"I'll call you back," she said into the phone, hanging up over Broyles' protests. She was jogging by the end of the hallway, nearly sprinting through the viewing room where Walter was watching the video monitors with interest.

Smoke was on the table, head lowered and growling over Steig's cuffed hands. Peter was holding his wrist, keeping him from withdrawing. Steig's hand was bloody; blood dripped from Smoke's teeth.

Olivia grabbed at Peter's arm. "No, you can't. You can't do that."

"You can't." He didn't take his eyes off Steig. "She can. I'm gonna count to one… One."

Smoke lunged and Olivia could hear bones snapping over Steig's scream.

*****

Once Steig started talking, he had a lot to say. They followed his directions to the side of the building and Silas dug at the frozen ground until they freed the recording.

Olivia went cold at the sound of John's voice on the tape, sick terror coiling in her stomach. She was still cold when they got to the hospital, running towards the doors until Silas caught a familiar scent and turned towards as SUV as it tore out of the parking lot. She radioed for assistance and Silas leapt into the front seat of her car, ignoring his box in the back seat, front paws braced on the dashboard. Olivia took a bare moment to order him down to the footwell of the passenger seat before giving chase. The car slid around the road miserably and Olivia vowed to replace it with an SUV if she survived this.

Silas growled as the thought leaked over to him.

_Sorry._

When they drew along side John's SUV, Griz was in the passenger seat. She met John's eyes over the furry mass of his brother, and just for a moment the expression on his face was so familiar that she thought everything was just a misunderstanding. There was some rational explanation. Something.

Then John wrenched the wheel and slammed his SUV into her car. The movement knocked Griz sideways, and Olivia saw his muzzle strike the window leaving behind a little smear of blood before she turned her attention to staying on the road. Traffic barrels thudded against the front of the car and she had an impression of something dark and looming before she turned sharply, sliding sideways. Outside there was a crashing sound, thunderous and reverberating.

She was out and running before the car stopped moving, Silas behind her. She pushed along her awareness of him, a status check and got back only the barest, guarded flicker of his presence.

She slid to the ground beside John, broken glass digging into her knees. Silas moved cautiously towards the wreckage of the SUV. John's face was bloody, eyes shocky. Behind her, Silas howled.

Later she sat in an ambulance and buried her face in her brother's fur and cried.

*****

Olivia blinked in the bright sunlight and watched Peter watching his father. The older man held his wrist like it hurt him and asked, "Are we leaving?"

Peter looked down at his sister and she whined softly. Smoke looked away from him, towards Silas and stepped forward.

Smoke touched her nose to Silas', and through the pack-sense she shared with her brother, Olivia smelled _smoke from a grass fire in summer_ , followed by a second, stronger wave of the same scent, tinged with the acrid smell of burning electronics. She blinked at Silas' realization that the later was Peter's scent name. He gave their names to her, _damp sand near a water pump_ followed by _gun oil and blood drying on metal_.

Peter snorted and gave her a little smile. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"You'll stay?"

He looked at his sister again, and Olivia got the feeling it was the wolf who made the decision.

"We'll stay."


End file.
